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Interval temporal logics take time intervals, instead of time points, as their primitive temporal entities. One of the most studied interval temporal logics is Halpern and Shoham’s modal logic of time intervals HS, which associates a modal operator with each binary relation between intervals over a linear order (the so-called Allen’s interval relations). In this paper, we compare and classify the expressiveness of all fragments of HS on the class of all linear orders and on the subclass of all dense linear orders. For each of these classes, we identify a complete set of definabilities between HS modalities, valid in that class, thus obtaining a complete classification of the family of all 4096 fragments of HS with respect to their expressiveness. We show that on the class of all linear orders there are exactly 1347 expressively different fragments of HS, while on the class of dense linear orders there are exactly 966 such expressively different fragments.

A set of moral problems known as The Trolley Dilemmas was presented to 3000 randomly selected inhabitants of the USA, Russia and China. It is shown that Chinese are significantly less prone to support utility-maximizing alternatives, as compared to the US and Russian respondents.

A number of possible explanations, as well as methodological issues pertaining to the field of surveying moral judgment and moral disagreement, are discussed.

In this study we tested the fruitfulness of advanced bibliometric methods for mapping subdomains in philosophy. The development of the number of publications on free will and sorites, the two subdomains treated in the study, over time was studied. We applied the cocitation approach to map the most cited publications, authors and journals, and we mapped frequently occurring terms, using a term co-occurrence approach. Both subdomains show a strong increase of publications in Web of Science. When we decomposed the publications by faculty, we could see an increase of free will publications also in social sciences, medicine and natural sciences. The multidisciplinary character of free will research was reflected in the cocitation analysis and in the term co-occurrence analysis: we found clusters/groups of cocited publications, authors and journals, and of co-occurring terms, representing philosophy as well as non-philosophical fields, such as neuroscience and physics. The corresponding analyses of sorites publications displayed a structure consisting of research themes rather than fields. All in all, both philosophers involved in this study acknowledge the validity of the various networks presented. Bibliometric mapping appears to provide an interesting tool for describing the cognitive orientation of a research field, not only in the natural and life sciences but also in philosophy, which this study shows.

The abundance of perceived 'possibilities' for prevention contrasts sharply with the difficulties that face preventive programmes. We argue that this situation has emerged from an incomplete understanding of the process of prevention, involving a mixture of biological factors, human decision making and time perspectives. Based on examples, an analysis of the factors in the prevention process is presented.

Naive speakers find some logical contradictions acceptable, specifically borderline contradictions involving vague predicates such as Joe is and isn't tall. In a recent paper, Cobreros et al. (J Philos Logic, 2012) suggest a pragmatic account of the acceptability of borderline contradictions. We show, however, that the pragmatic account predicts the wrong truth conditions for some examples with disjunction. As a remedy, we propose a semantic analysis instead. The analysis is close to a variant of fuzzy logic, but conjunction and disjunction are interpreted as intensional operators.

This essay advances a libertarian theory of moral rights, which responds effectively to some serious objections that have been raised against libertarianism. I show how libertarianism can explain children’s rights to certain physical integrity and aid. I defend strong moral rights of human, pre-natal organisms, infants and children against all agents to certain non-interference with their physical integrity. I also argue that parents’ moral obligation to aid their offspring follows from a moral principle that prohibits agents to actively harm rights-bearers. Since this is the core principle of all versions of libertarianism, we gain simplicity and coherence. In chapter two, I explain my theory’s similarities and differences to a libertarian theory of moral rights advanced by Robert Nozick in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I explain the structure and coherence of negative moral rights as advanced by Nozick. Then, I discuss what these negative rights are rights to, and the criteria for being a rights-bearer. In chapter three, I formulate a clear distinction between active and passive behaviour, and discuss the moral importance of foreseeing consequences of one’s active interventions. In chapter four, I claim that some pre-natal human organisms, human infants, and children, are rights-bearers. I formulate a morally relevant characterization of potentiality, and argue that possession of such potentiality is sufficient to have negative rights against all agents. In chapter five, I discuss whether potential moral subjects, in addition, have positive moral rights against all agents to means sufficient to develop into actual moral subjects. I argue that this suggestion brings some difficulties when applied to rights-conflicts. In chapter six, I argue that potential moral subjects’ rights to means necessary to develop into actual moral subjects can be defended in terms of merely negative rights. By adopting the view advanced in this chapter, we get a simple, coherent theory. It avoids the difficulties in the view advanced in chapter five, while keeping its intuitively plausible features. In chapter seven, I discuss whether the entitlement theory is contradictory and morally repugnant. I argue that my version of the entitlement theory is not.

Computational linguistics studies natural language in its various manifestations from a computational point of view, both on the theoretical level (modeling grammar modules dealing with natural language form and meaning, and the relation between these two) and on the practical level (developing applications for language and speech technology). Right from the start in the 1950ties, there have been strong links with computer science, logic, and many areas of mathematics - one can think of Chomsky's contributions to the theory of formal languages and automata, or Lambek's logical modeling of natural language syntax. The symposium on Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics 2018 (LACompLing2018) assesses the place of logic, mathematics, and computer science in present day computational linguistics. It intends to be a forum for presenting new results as well as work in progress.

A Course in Behavioral Economics 2e is an accessible and self-contained introduction to the field of behavioral economics. The author introduces students to the subject by comparing and contrasting its theories and models with those of mainstream economics. Full of examples, exercises and problems, this book emphasises the intuition behind the concepts and is suitable for students from a wide range of disciplines.

AbstractBehavioral economics has long defined itself in opposition to neoclassical economics, but recent developments suggest a synthesis may be on the horizon. In particular, a number of economists have argued that behavioral factors can be incorporated into standard theory, and that the days of behavioral economics therefore are numbered. This paper explores the proposed synthesis and argues that it is distinctly behavioral in nature – not neoclassical. Far from indicating that behavioral economics as a stand-alone research program is over, the proposed synthesis represents the consummate conversion of neoclassical economists into behavioral ones.

Daniel M. Hausman holds that preferences in economics are total subjective comparative evaluations—subjective judgments to the effect that something is better than something else all things told—and that economists are right to employ this conception of preference. Here, I argue against both parts of Hausman’s thesis. The failure of Hausman’s account, I continue, reflects a deeper problem, that is, that preferences in economics do not need an explicit definition of the kind that he seeks. Nonetheless, Hausman’s labors were not in vain: his accomplishment is that he has articulated a useful model of the theory.

We usually examine our considered intuitions regarding inequality, including health inequality, by comparing populations of the same size. Likewise, the standard measures of inequality and its badness have been developed on the basis of only such comparisons. Real world policies to mitigate inequalities, however, will most often also affect the size of a population. For example, many health policies are very likely to prevent deaths and affect procreation decisions. Population control policies, such as China’s one-child policy, trivially affect population size. In addition, if we are interested in measuring the development of global inequality during the last thirty years or so, we have to take into account the great population expansion in countries such as India and China. Hence, we need to consider how to extend measures of inequality to different number cases, that is, how to take into account the complication that population numbers are often not equal between the compared alternatives. Moreover, examining different number case is a fruitful way of probing our ideas about egalitarian concerns and will reveal as yet unnoticed complexities and problems in our current conceptualization of the value of equality, or so I’ll argue.

This paper focuses on the relations between population ethics and metaethics. Population ethics gives rise to well-known paradoxes, such as the paradox of mere addition. After presenting a version of this paradox, it is argued that a different way to dismantle it might be by considering it as a way to change our standard view of justification in moral theory. Two possible views are considered: a non-cognitivist approach to justification and to the explanation of inconsistency in morals; Parfit's suggestion that certain paradoxes might be «quarantined» without shaking our confidence in moral theories encapsulating them.

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. The chapter discusses two interesting suggestions that seem to support this idea. The first is critical level utilitarianism (CLU) and the other is view comparativism. The chapter describes the pure case of life extension versus life replacement and then presents some different views about the value of life extension, indicating some of the arguments in favor and against life extension fail. Then, it turns to the implications of critical level utilitarianism and comparativism in regards to life extension versus replacement, the main topic of this chapter. A case is presented to explain that there is a conflict between intuitions regarding life extension and comparativism.

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives although the total welfare is the same in both cases, and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. I shall discuss two interesting suggestions that seem to support this idea, or so it has been argued. Firstly, the idea there is a positive level of well-being above which a life has to reach to have positive contributive value to a population, so-called Critical Level Utilitarianism. Secondly, the view that it makes an outcome worse if people are worse off than they otherwise could have been, a view I call Comparativism. I shall show that although these theories do capture some of our intuitions about the value of longevity, they contradict others, and they have a number of counterintuitive implications in other cases that we ultimately have to reject them.

Standard welfarist axiologies do not care who is given what share of the good. For example, giving Wlodek two apples and Ewa three is just as good as giving Wlodek three and Ewa two, or giving Wlodek five and Ewa zero. A common objection to such theories is that they are insensitive to matters of distributive justice. To meet this objection, one can adjust the axiology to take distributive concerns into account. One possibility is to turn to what I will call Meritarian axiologies. According to such theories, individuals can have a claim to, deserve, or merit, a certain level of wellbeing depending on their merit level, and the value of an outcome is determined not only by people’s wellbeing but also by their merit level.

Recently, in his Rolf Schock Prize Lecture, Derek Parfit has suggested a novel way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing what he calls “imprecision” in value comparisons. He suggests that in a range of important cases, populations of different sizes are only imprecisely comparable. Parfit suggests that this feature of value comparisons opens up a way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other counterintuitive conclusions, and thus solves one of the major challenges in ethics. In this paper, I shall try to clarify Parfit’s proposal and evaluate whether it will help us with the paradoxes in population ethics.

The person affecting restriction states that one outcome can only be better than another if it is better for someone. The existential question concerns whether existence can be better or worse for a person than non-existence, the personal value of existence. According to the affirmative answer, existence can be better or worse than non-existence for a person. This chapter discusses the implications of the restriction and the affirmative answer to the existential question for population ethics, the value of future generations, and especially for the possibility of avoiding the so-called repugnant conclusion, an undesirable implication of classical utilitarianism.

Derek Parfit originally formulated the Repugnant Conclusion as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living” (1984: 388).

Better to Be than not to Be?2010In: The Benefit of Broad Horizons: intellectual and institutional preconditions for a global social science : festschrift for Björn Wittrock on the occasion of his 65th birthday / [ed] Hans Joas and Barbro Klein, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2010, p. 399-414Chapter in book (Other academic)

Can it be better (or worse) for me to exist than not to exist? Several philosophers have denied this, on the ground that if it could, then if I didn't exist, this would have been worse (better) for me, which is absurd. In our paper we argue that these philosophers are mistaken: Claims about the comparative value or disvalue of existence need not imply any absurdities. Such claims, which are of central importance for population ethics and for the status of the so-called Person-Affecting Restriction, can be rationalized if one adheres to the so-called fitting-attitudes analysis of value.

In Derek Parfit's original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is characterized as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living” (Parfit 1984). The Repugnant Conclusion highlights a problem in an area of ethics which has become known as population ethics. The last three decades have witnessed an increasing philosophical interest in questions such as “Is it possible to make the world a better place by creating additional happy people?” and “Is there a moral obligation to have children?” The main problem has been to find an adequate theory about the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of their lives, and their identities may vary. Since, arguably, any reasonable moral theory has to take these aspects of possible states of affairs into account when determining the normative status of actions, the study of population ethics is of general import for moral theory. As the name indicates, Parfit finds the Repugnant Conclusion unacceptable and many philosophers agree. However, it has been surprisingly difficult to find a theory that avoids the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other equally counterintuitive conclusions. Thus, the question as to how the Repugnant Conclusion should be dealt with and, more generally, what it shows about the nature of ethics has turned the conclusion into one of the cardinal challenges of modern ethics.